Graham looked ahead. For how long, he couldn’t know. He just wanted to be done with all this running and hiding and he would have definitely done so, if not for one thing. His child.

Perhaps it was his mistake of not telling Maria, his first and only love that he belonged to the once-great but now accursed family line known as Phoenix, from which the most powerful Mages from each generation had hailed. Originally tasked with protecting the Emperor and his Royal Family, over time, the Emperor’s advisors and even His Majesty himself grew wary and then completely distrustful of his Royal Guard. And so the order came, first to sterilize the Phoenix family but when they realized what was happening, they didn’t want to just be left to their fate. They fought back.

But it was too late.

Over the next few centuries, they were hunted down and killed like animals, butchered in cold blood, regardless if they were men, women or child, everyone was slaughtered, to ensure that the Phoenix family could never rise from its ashes. But they were able to survive, one minor branch was able to somehow still survive.

Graham shook his head as he stood up and glanced around him. He was sitting on a huge rock near the end of a cliff, in a northern cold wasteland and the blistering, cold wind howling around him. There was a large amount of animals prowling near him, awaiting their prey. And, for a moment he even thought of going down on his knees and letting them finish him off. But once again, there was his child. He had to at least try, for him to live.

As Graham went rushing ahead, sliding down a narrow corridor and into the dense, frozen tundra, a pack of rabid and hungry polar wolves were circling him and then went into full sprint after him. Their once majestic pale-white fur was now either ripped apart or smudged with a dirty green color, their eyes were a combination of blood-and-white and their jaws looked like they could fall apart any moment. For any regular human, this would mark the end of their life as even if by some miracle they’re able to survive this dreadful encounter and not get eaten alive, they would be left with a slow and agonizing death from rabies. However, Graham was not an ordinary man. He was Graham Phoenix and he wouldn’t go down, no matter what.

Three of the smaller wolves lunged forward at Graham but he dodged left, causing the wolves to stumble into a huge pine tree. Momentarily stunned but being unable to feel any pain since their advanced stage of rabies rendered their pain receptors moot, they turned around to face their prey but Graham merely grunted annoyingly and snapped his fingers, causing three narrow but dense waves of dark-blue energy to swish from his fingers and find their targets, each wave vaporizing its designated wolf with ease.

The other wolves stopped as if stunned by an invisible wall. The Alpha, the largest one and the only one who still somewhat resembled a normal, healthy polar wolf, squinted his blood-shot eyes and dragged his paws against the thick layer of snow beneath. As if on cue, the remaining three wolves charged ahead from different sides and then, as if to take control of this diversion, the Alpha wolf howled loudly and with a lot of rage as he leapt on ahead, his sharp claws ready to maul the human Mage down to pieces. What the Alpha wolf didn’t know, however, was that in this situation, the wolves were the prey, while the human was the hunter.

This time, Graham chose to be defensive. By slightly waving his arms, he conjured a translucent light-blue sphere around him. As soon as the three smaller wolves touched the barrier with their claws and jaw, they disintegrated into dust, with a faint ‘poof’ sound. The Alpha wolf’s eyes widened, his gruff fur looking as if he suddenly got goosebumps and he slowed down and prowled on, until he was toe-to-toe with the barrier. Sniffing it, he looked around at his fallen brethren and Graham could swear he saw sorrow in the elderly canine’s face. Or maybe it was the pain from the rabies, he couldn’t really tell, since his own mental state was fading away.

The Alpha wolf then looked straight into the human’s gray eyes and closed his own golden eyes with a nod and then went forward, touching the barrier and meeting the same fate as his fellow pack members. Graham waved his hand, and was now left with an empty feeling inside of his stomach. Did the old wolf just commit suicide because he couldn’t bear the pain of his incurable illness anymore? And he also seemed to join his family and friends to the other side. If this was nature’s attempt to mock Graham, then they have succeeded. He looked at the seven piles of ashes which just moments ago were trying to kill him but he didn’t feel any contempt for them. Instead, he only felt pity and compassion.

Here in the northern tundras, whatever life there is, they have adapted for it. Which also includes humans. Graham could have spent the entire day looking at the raw, untouched nature around him as he saw the frozen trees, the pure white snow under his boots which squeaked a sliding and crunching sound whenever he took a step forward. No other animals dared to cross his way anymore so he started sprinting to reach his destination faster.

Minutes later, he arrived at his destination. It was a small cabin in the middle of a valley that looked up at the cliff that Graham was sitting on before his encounter with the rabid wolves. The wooden construction on the cabin was cracking and falling apart but it had been in such state for decades now and surprisingly it was still holding up. Smoke was slowly rising up from the weary-looking chimney and there were logs of chopped wood scattered around with an axe stuck into the largest log. Graham approached the door and knocked on it several times. Not waiting for an answer, he entered the cabin and closed the door behind him.

The cabin only had a single room, which contained a bed, a table, a chair, an oven, which was heating and had a bowl of water at its edge, simmering, and another bowl with some red fluid, which looked like tea. There were severals clean, white sheets on the table along with a large, round bowl, which had traces of blood and some other, yellowish-white fluid in and around it. Sitting on the chair was an old woman with a heavily wrinkled face and she was wearing a ragged, common peasant dress and a gray wimple from which several streaks of her white hair could be seen poking. She was holding a newborn baby, which was wrapped in a white blanket but the baby wasn’t crying. Its tiny pale head had some strands of blonde hair on it and the baby seemed to sleep comfortably in the older woman’s warm embrace. But on the bed...

There she was. Graham’s everything. Even in her emaciated and sickly state, she was still the most beautiful creature in the universe. Her long, platinum-blonde hair rested around her, encircling her like a crown does to a queen, her pale face had a faint smile on it, making her beauty even more pronounced. She was covered by a blanket which was bloody and there was blood on her hands and face too but Graham didn’t seem to notice the blood as he leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

“Godammit... you didn’t deserve this... you didn’t...” Graham winced as he straightened himself up and took a deep breath.

“Good Lord, Graham, you look like a vampire.” The old woman said in a kind voice as she held the baby. Graham ignored her and went to the small mirror that was attached to the wall directly opposite of the front door. His once fair skin was now comparable to a vampire’s porcelaine-like skin, the wrinkles on his face rivaling those of the old woman’s, his gray eyes hollow and lifeless, his dark hair peppered with gray and white. He looked far older than his real age, even though he had just barely passed twenty.

Turning away from his miserable expression, Graham finally acknowledged the only other living beings in this cabin. He looked at the whelp with a look full of contempt and disgust, as if seeing his most heated enemy. The enthusiasm and hope he had felt waned abruptly. Then he looked up to the old woman and his expression hardly changed.

“That brat... that’s it? That’s the spawn?” Graham muttered coldly.

The old lady gasped with an incredulous look on her weary face.

“Excuse me? Brat? Spawn?! This child is your son! Your flesh and blood! Your and-”

“He’s a murderer! That’s what he is! Taking my Maria from me... oh... I told her... I told her that this would be fatal for her, there is no cure... giving birth to a whelp in the Phoenix family is a death sentence...” Graham choked on his own saliva as he slammed the wall, causing the baby to wake up and cry out for the first time since his father arrived.

“There, there, hush hush, little Jonathan...” The old lady warmly smiled as she whispered an old lullaby and gently weaved her hands left-right to calm the baby down. She succeeded as the toddler stopped crying and continued to sleep peacefully in her hands, with no awareness of the chaos erupting around him.

At the mention of his son’s name, Graham turned around abruptly toward the old woman-baby duo as he had been shifting in his place with some hidden anger in his eyes.

“Jonathan? That’s the name you gave him?”

“That’s the name your wife gave him, while she endured the worst pain possible for a human being, while you were away, hiding and cowering in fear! Shame on you!” The old woman answered through her gritted teeth, taking great care not to rise her voice too much as she didn’t want to wake up the baby.

“You old hag! Don’t you dare say anything to me! You don’t know how much I’ve suffered, how much I’ve sacrificed...” Graham pointed his skinny finger at the old lady as he nearly tripped over his own feet but she didn’t back down.

“If only you could have sacrificed that petty pride of yours so that you could have been with your wife in her last moments... she was calling for you, all the time. She sounded and looked very proud, of her son and husband, if only he could have felt the same way as she did...” The old woman sniffed, not even giving any effort to hide her tears. Graham ignored her again and approached his deceased wife and looked at her.

Even in death, there was no one prettier than her. And if not for this child, she still could have been alive. Such were the thoughts in Graham’s head, a sad and sullen head, full of sorrow and instability. Through the window above the bed, he saw a group of people making their way across the snowy hill.

“There they are, time to go.” Graham leaned down and kissed his dead wife’s forehead again and then hurried across the cabin to the front door.

“Wait, where are you going, hey!” Despite the old woman’s protests, Graham left the cabin and hurried across the valley, from where he came, passing a small, frozen waterfall.

There were two groups of people that Graham expected to arrive; one that he had gathered and instructed and the other one was an angry mob of people willing to tear him to shreds for his marriage to Maria. Graham was hoping on whatever little bit of faith and hope he still had in him, that it was the former group of people, who gave their word to him that they would take care of his wife, kid and the granny.

But Graham was so far ahead now that he couldn’t see nor hear anything that was happening behind him. And frankly, he didn’t want to. His wife, his love, his everything, his Maria... was gone. And in great pain too. The kid... his kid... while his reaction was that of rage and anger, he still felt something. Maybe his father instinct wasn’t kicking in yet but he felt something. He should have at least touched him, said something to him. But now it was too late for that. His son would hate him in the future for what he did and didn’t and there was nothing that could change that.

Graham arrived at another cliff, but there was also a large cave to the right side of it. Before checking up on the cave, he approached the edge of the cliff and as he stood there, he looked down and there was at least several hundred meters down into the extremely cold but not frozen sea. The water was so pale that it appeared as it was a white marble field but the waves were still clearly flowing around, throwing themselves violently against the cliff’s lower edges. Graham would have likely stared at this sight for a bit longer if not for a long and harrowing roar that grabbed his attention.

Not feeling the slightest ounce of fear, Graham stepped away from the cliff and went straight into the darkened cave, his ragged and dirty Mage robes flowing unceremoniously around him. Going further into the cave, Graham could feel the air getting denser and warmer, almost to the point of actually feeling comfortable, especially when compared to the blistering cold outside. And soon, the reason for the unusual warmth in this cave became apparent. There were two separate pathways, that didn’t lead too far in either direction. In fact, Graham could see both of the paths’ ends from the intersection. The left path led into a natural hot spring formation with milky-white warm thermal water that was producing a huge amount of thick steam, which was the source of all this warmth. However, the right path, contained a far more gruesome and tragic sight.

Amid a nest of many broken twigs and pummeled clay, a massive polar bear was laying down sideways, his huge paws and limbs facing Graham while his own face looked defeated as he was looking in front of him with his half-closed eyes. His once majestic white fur, was a dirty yellow color and there were many bites and cuts over his flesh, most of them looking green, pungent and infected. His breaths were deep and ragged and occasionally he would let out a slow, lumbering roar, a sign of his impending doom. Graham, who was still feeling angry over his wife’s death, relaxed his eyes as he looked at the pitiful creature that was dying in front of him.

It was pretty obvious who was responsible for the mangled state of this polar bear. Whether it was the pack of rabid wolves that Graham encountered and ended earlier or some other one, the canines were targeting everyone in the vicinity of this forest. But something else bothered Graham.

The polar bear is the largest and most powerful land carnivore. It had no rivals, it was the apex predator on land so a pack of wolves shouldn’t be a problem for this mighty creature. One strike from its enormous clawed paw and it’s all over for the wolves.

So why was the bear defeated so easily? Did he allow himself to be defeated? Did he, just like, Graham, want an end to all this, to finally end it all? Graham believed that death is the only relief possible so did this bear here also share the same idea?

Graham raised his hand. The most obvious choice there was for him, end the bear’s sufferring and be done with it. But he also thought of another way. To maybe give the bear a new chance of life. There was no known cure for rabies. No medical and not even a magical one. But this was a wrong assumption.

Graham got closer to the bear and leaned right in front of his head. The poor bear took another deep breath. Whether he was even aware that a human, who was the preferred meal choice for a polar bear, was right in front of him, Graham couldn’t tell, but he put hand just slightly above the bear’s large head and recited, with a slow and tender voice:

“From the ashes and bones, grow back, to a better past, where you belong.”

As soon as he recited this incantation, a very bright light shone over the bear’s whole body but Graham didn’t wait for the whole event to end. He just stood up, wiped some dust from his shoulders and then dissappeared from the cave entirely. After a few moments, the light was gone but the bear’s eyes opened widely. He slammed the ground and got up to his enormous feet as he stretched out his majestic body. He looked around frantically. Was he dreaming? His fur was white again, with a grayish-yellowish tint because of his advanced age, but all the wounds were gone. Something had happened but he couldn’t understand what. One moment, he was lying down and waiting to die but then, the other moment, he was up again on his feet, feeling better than ever, even feeling more lively compared to when he was much younger.

He couldn’t save his wife, nobody can revive the dead, not even the legendary Phoenix family. Death is the ultimate finality of this universe and it trumps both science and magic, easily. Although, bluntly speaking, there are some... unorthodox ways to bring back a human life, by using foul and illegal magic, but the person brought back, isn’t quite alive and not even fully dead. It’s something in between, a revenant or a zombie. And Graham definitely didn’t want to see his wife as a living corpse. He had accepted her departure, since he plannedon joining her soon.

Why did he save the bear and not the wolves? He could have done so. Incapacitate them then heal them up. The only Mage and person in this world who can heal the deadly and widely feared illness known as rabies, was him. He never really understood why he, out of the thousands of Mages around, just he had the power to cure it. He, who never really considered himself a good or even a decent person, far from it. So why did he have the power to cure others from this illness and why did he only use it once, just on this bear, when so many humans died from it already, so many

young ones and children...?

Graham stood at the edge of the cliff again, the upper half of his feet leaning over the deadly height of the natural construct. The melancholic Mage looked down and spread out his arms. For the first time in weeks, he was able to put on a smile on his depressed face.

“Thank you Maria... and forgive me Jonathan. Both of you deserved a better husband and father than me. May this Curse end here.”

Leaning forward, he slowly swung down and started to flip around several times in the air as he was landing down. He could have survived this situation in many ways. Freeze the water under him, soften the rocks, make an invisible wall of air to propel him back to the top, levitate, conjure a protective barrier around him... so many ways but he rejected them all. Finally, he was doing something of his own accord, of his own free will and not something that others had told him or ordered him to do.

As the cold waves swallowed him up, both his soul and mortal body, Graham Phoenix finally found peace and freedom at last. And to soften up the tragedy of his premature death, there was at least one soul to mourn his passing.

The same polar bear that Graham had just saved, arrived at the spot at the cliff where Graham had launched himself. He dragged his giant paw across the ground in circles and then up and down and at first it seemed that it was just some random animal instinct or something similar to that but as seconds passed, it became clear that it was far more complicated than that. There was actually some sort of symbol drawn down on the clear white snow and the bear took a step back and looked down at his creation. If anyone believed that animals couldn’t show emotion, then one look at this old bear’s face would definitely prove them wrong.

The bear’s face was hanging low as he looked at the symbol with his large black eyes without blinking. He was standing upright, with his arms drawn to his sides and he looked more akin to a soldier saluting and honoring his fallen comrade than a wild animal standing on its last legs. Then, looking into the air, the majestic creature let out a loud and harrowing roar of lament and pain. It lingered on and on, for God knows how long.

A last song and salute for the human who saved the bear’s life-and took his own.